Opposition Party Promises Ghanaians Better Days Ahead

Ghana's opposition Convention People's Party (CPP) has vowed
to win this year's general elections, accusing President John Kufuor's ruling
New Patriotic Party of failing to live up to its promises. This comes after the
party released its manifesto Tuesday ahead of the elections, claiming that it
has plans to alleviate the suffering of the masses and bring hope to Ghanaians.
The opposition party, which is the first political party to rule the nation
democratically, said it put Ghana on a high pedestal that many African
countries were proud of and emulated. But it criticized the ruling NPP and the
main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for failing to build upon or
maintain the country's infrastructure. Nii Moi Thompson is the chairman of
CPP's manifesto committee. He tells reporter Peter Clottey from Ghana's capital
Accra that it is about time Ghanaians reclaim the spirit that led to the
country's independence.

"We
believe that the time has come for us to reclaim the initiative and the spirit
that took us to independence. And this we do by situating the manifesto within
the context of the party's ideology of Nkrumahism, and there are three elements
of Nkrumahism, that informed the manifesto. The first one is
self-determination; that we need to take over our resources and our destinies
into our own hands, just as we did in years leading to independence, and
develop this country according to our aspirations and efforts, and not what
someone determines for us from a distant land," Thompson noted.

He
said the CPP would transform not only the country, but also its people.

"The
second is social justice where, again, we make sure that for example where you
are born does not forever determine destiny. If you are born in the rural area
and poor, it doesn't mean that you remain poor. And then the third element is
pan-Africanism. We cannot develop in isolation. We need to necessarily collaborate
with other Africans at home and abroad," he said.

Thompson
said previous governments have failed the nation because those parties lack
clear definition of their philosophies to take the country forward.

"We
have failed to meet our challenges in the past precisely because we didn't have
such a clearly articulated ideology. Our mentality in this country remains very
colonial. We believe that we are incapable of doing anything, even running a
telephone company. Only the white man can do that. Our national teams are being
coached by fourth-rate French coaches. Our presidential palace is being built
by Indians. This is a retreat away from the independence ideals of
self-reliance and due spirit. We need to reclaim that ideal, and this is
precisely what the manifesto seeks to do," Thompson noted.

He
said there was need for the citizenry to find self worth again.

"We
need to instill into the Ghanaian once again a spirit of self pride, self
respect, self confidence and of course the culture of excellence," he said.

Thompson
denied the CPP party is not attractive to the country's youth.

"Actually one of the challenges that we are
facing now is getting out enough registration forms for the youth. And
everywhere we go, there is oversubscription. In the course of preparing the
manifesto, questions kept coming up, especially from the youth as to what the
CPP actually stood for because they have heard so much negative propaganda from
our detractors. But as the result of that, included in this manifesto is a brief
history of the CPP, dating back to its formation through the periods of
struggles for independence, through independence, the subversion and the years
after the 1966 coup. And so the youths are now beginning to understand the real
CPP story, that we did not squander the resources of the country. We actually
used them to develop this country," Thompson pointed out.